Intro

I think I've kept this under wraps for long enough. The idea behind this mod was to make quasi-realistic CW sides that focuses on balance and gameplay.

I've spent quite a lot of time working on the sides of this mod. I think the result has come out pretty well. I don't know where I'm going with this mod, but I'll see. Right now, the mod just uses some default maps, plus some ported BF1 maps. The mod isn't perfect so if you have suggestions, please let me know.

Additional screenshots later!

Realism
I've tried my best to make this mod as realistic as possible without sacrificing the quality of gameplay. I've worked a good while to create a blue laser texture that reflects the one in the movie and I managed to find a decent red one for the CIS. The impact effects have also been changed; I've done away with the little spark impacts and replaced it with more fiery and 'lightful' effects but not overdone. Terrain impact effects include a scorch mark. The unit impact effects involve a bright flash -- very similar to the movies. I tried my best to use weapons from the movie and resorted to EU resources a weapon wasn't available for what I needed. The damage has also been redone so that combat is more realistic -- it no longer takes 7 or 8 shots with a rifle to kill a unit. Kick has been added and accuracy and fire rate has been improved but not to the point that it is ridiculous.

Balance
I made the sides so they are perfectly balanced -- both sides now have exactly the same weapon stats; the only differences are aesthetic. All units specialize in one area of combat and have different roles but they all work in all situations. This means that shotguns no longer dominates in close quarters, snipers no longer dominate in long distances, and rifleman are actually relevant. No single unit should be completely dominant in all situations.

Gameplay
Gameplay is the most important aspect to this mod. The mod is intended to be fun and more challenging. The units' properties are more dynamically planned. Balancing of the mod assures that no one side or unit is overly dominant of the others. The weapons properties make the game much more engaging, hopefully revitalizing the feel of the game. Among the changes is the removal of the reticule without zooming. While this may be frustrating at first, it allows you to develop more intuitive targeting.

Units

Rifleman
Label: Clone Trooper/Super Battle Droid
Health HIGH
Agility MODERATE LOW
Weapons
Automatic Blaster Rifle
Semi Automatic Blaster Rifle
Frag Grenade
Melee

Assault Label: Assault Trooper/Battle Droid
Health MODERATE
Agility HIGH
Weapons
Automatic Blaster Carbine
Semi Automatic Blaster Carbine
Concussion Grenade
Melee

Sniper
Label: Clone Sharpshooter/Assassin Droid
Health LOW
Agility MODERATE LOW
Weapons
Sniper Rifle
Blaster Pistol
Frag Grenade
Melee


Engineer
Label: Clone Engineer/Engineer Droid
Health MODERATE
Agility HIGH
Weapons
Burst Blaster Rifle
Fusion Cutter
Detpack
Melee

Support Label: Clone Support/Support Droid
Health HIGH
Agility LOW
Weapons
Support Rifle
Deployable Manned Turret
Ammo Dispenser
Medkit

Weapons

Automatic Blaster Rifle
Mode Automatic
Accuracy MODERATE HIGH
Fire Rate MODERATE
Kick MODERATE HIGH
Heat Tolerance LOW
Damage MODERATE
Effective Range

Semi-Automatic Blaster Rifle
Mode Semi-Automatic
Accuracy MODERATE HIGH
Fire Rate MODERATE LOW
Kick MODERATE HIGH
Heat Tolerance LOW
Damage MODERATE HIGH
Effective Range

Burst Blaster Rifle
Mode Burst
Accuracy MODERATE HIGH
Fire Rate MODERATE HIGH
Kick MODERATE HIGH
Damage MODERATE LOW
Effective Range

Automatic Blaster Carbine
Mode Automatic
Accuracy LOW
Fire Rate HIGH
Kick MODERATE HIGH
Heat Tolerance HIGH
Damage MODERATE LOW
Effective Range

Semi Automatic Blaster Carbine
Mode Semi-Automatic
Accuracy LOW
Fire Rate HIGH
Kick MODERATE HIGH
Heat Tolerance HIGH
Damage MODERATE HIGH
Effective Range

Sniper Rifle
Mode Semi-Automatic
Accuracy HIGH
Fire Rate LOW
Kick HIGH
Damage HIGH
Effective Range

Support Rifle
Mode Automatic
Accuracy MODERATE HIGH
Fire Rate HIGH
Kick MODERATE HIGH
Heat Tolerance HIGH
Damage MODERATE HIGH
Effective Range
Note: Ammo clips are somewhat shorter and they are burned through much more quickly than with other weapons. The weapon also takes a fraction of a second to warm-up which means your firing will be delayed.


Blaster Pistol
Mode Semi-Automatic
Accuracy LOW
Fire Rate LOW
Kick MODERATE LOW
Heat Tolerance MODERATE LOW
Damage MODERATE
Effective Range


Frag Grenade
Range HIGH
Damage MODERATE
Explosion Delay LONG

Concussion Grenade
Range MODERATE
Damage MODERATE HIGH
Explosion Delay SHORT

Detpack
Range MODERATE LOW
Damage HIGH
Explosion Delay Remote Controlled

Manned Dropturret
Mode Automatic
Accuracy MODERATE HIGH
Fire Rate HIGH
Heat Tolerance HIGH
Damage MODERATE HIGH
Effective Range
Note: This weapon is deployed via dispenser. This weapon uses heat instead of ammo.

Ammo Dispenser
Dispenses ammo canisters.

Medkit
Disepnses health regeneration buffer.

Melee
Weapon of last resort for hand-to-hand combat. Instant kill.

Maps
I'm not exactly the world's greatest map maker so for now, I'm using default maps or maps ported from BF1. I'm hoping to add some mod maps to the collection soon.

Current
Rhen Var: Citadel
Mos Eisley
Tantive IV
Kamino

Possible
Naboo
Kashyyk: Docks
Hoth
Any other mod maps

Known Bugs

-The game crashes if you switch the dropturret to the primary weapon and then use the ammo dispenser
-Almost all laser sounds are the shipped republic rifle laser sounds
-No localization
-No clone legions yet for different maps
-CIS blaster pistol muzzleflash is blue
-The droid support rifle's dummyroot is off

Beta Download

Rhen Var: Citadel CW
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=ELNILB61

Mos Eisley CW
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=7V7BL63P

I would really appreciate any constructive criticism of the mod, especially in the direction of gameplay. If you download this mod, please pay me back by providing your input. Thank you!

Credits

DC-15A Rifle - Pahricida
DC-15S Carbine - OOM-9
ATRT Driver Model - Dragonum
ATRT Driver Skin - Satti/AQT
Pistol grip animations - Darth DUCK
T-21 - Warlord28
Ammo pack addons - Deviss-Rex
501st Skins - Repsharshooter
Recon Visor - NeoMarz
Frag grenade model - Syth
Frag grenade trail effect - ? (from BFX assets)
CIS laser texture - ? (from BFX assets)
Melee -MetalRancor
Alpha testing - FragMe!, Repsharshooter

A lot of the BFX assets weren't attributed to anyone so I'm not 100% sure who made them.

i like this idea, good work.

Looks very nice. Downloading both.

Good to see you back on the railway, train.

Ammo pack addons - Deviss-Rex

I'm pretty sure CodaRez made those.

501st Skins - Repsharshooter

That looks like the one that was edited by ARC_Commander himself.

Recon Visor - Wazmol69

Wazmol only converted the visor; Neomarz made it

SBD Wrist Muzzle - ? (from BFX assets)
SBD Skin - ? (from BFX assets)

Both are stock assets.

And something else you forgot to mention: the AT-RT Driver model was modeled by Dragonum and is using a skin edited by me, who used Satti's 9th Assault Corps skins as a base. Sorry for any inconveniences.

Okay, so I gave Mos Eisley a try, it was a balanced enough match and I gotta say: I love the effects, but for me, it didn't stand as a remarkably different mod; I mean, they were all using basically the same guns, I didn't notice any difference between the classes, besides the grenades; all guns seemed dead-on accurate and very deadly for me, all troopers seemed resistant and agile enough to survive for quite a while. I think you should further increase the handicaps, or else the player might as well choose any class and experience the exact same gameplay, regardless of his specialization.

The melee attack is overpowered, like, very much, and the main problem is, the AI uses it often enough to turn what would have been a firefight into a insta-kill wrestling match. It's just like the AI heroes in Hero Assault, with their Throw Lightsaber ability; it's a powerful attack and they spam it a lot. Frustration ensues.

I also have two nitpicks about realism:
1)Shouldn't the SBD be using wrist rockets, instead of throwing grenades like a regular B-1?
2)Shouldn't their guns be somewhat inaccurate and rarely -if ever- automatic? I don't recall seeing anyone firing a fully automatic rifle in any movie of the prequel trilogy, they were all firing in short three-blast bursts or even single blasts. The fire rate of every handheld weapon shown in the Star Wars movies is prretty slow.
I understand why we have full-auto weapons in Battlefront II, it's for gameplay reasons, but if you are sticking to realism, I guess you might as well try experimenting with the concept of changing that around. The stock Boba Fett has a burst-fire rifle, and it works pretty well for him, it could work for the common trooper classes too...

I hope I don't come as overly critical.

This looks awesome! I was actually thinking of doing something very similar to this, but I knew that I would not be able to do it yet with my little experience. I love that you made all of the clones mostly look the same. All the different helmets and features of the stock clones were nice, but not very movie accurate. I will go into more detail after I play it.

Edit: Ok, I have played it. You did a good job of hitting the nail on the head for a lot of things. There were however some things that didn't feel very movie realistic in my opinion. One of the biggest things that bugged me was the names of the weapons. I am not sure if you were going to change this, but the weapons were actually called things like "sniper rifle" and "semi-automatic rifle."

For the Clones: The guns in my opinion should be named like they were in the movie. The clone blaster rifle should be named the DC-15A. The clone carbine should be named DC-15S. The clone sniper should be named the DC-15x. Ect. You got the weapons themselves right, but you just need to name them correctly. Now for the performance of the weapons. I do not think you should give a semi-automatic feature for any of the clone weapons. The carbine, maybe, but not the blaster rifle. The blaster rifle should have a slower rate of fire. The carbine in my opinion should have a faster rate of fire but a bit less ammo, less accuracy, and maybe a semi-automatic setting. The sniper should be a one hit kill but with an extremely slow rate of fire. (maybe one second between each shot) I do not really like the burst rifle, because it did not show up really as a clone weapon in the movies so it would be hard to give it a canon name. You could just give the engineer a carbine or maybe a pistol. The support rifle should be named the T-21 light repeating blaster, because that is what it looked like. It should kill in 2 hits but be fairly inaccurate. The trooper that uses it should be fairly slow because this weapon requires a backpack generator to shoot more than 30 shots without running out of ammo. This would be the slow anti-infantry kind of guy in my opinion.

For the Droids:The SBD should be the heavy anti-infantry class with a burst wrist canon, slow automatic wrist canon, or trishot semi-automatic wrist canon. The SBD should also have wrist rockets as mentioned before. The B1 battle droid should use a semi-automatic, 2 or three hit kill E-5 blaster rifle. The sniper rifle that you had seemed fine to me. Just rename it to the E-5s and make it kill in one hit but with a slow rate of fire like the clone sniper rifle. The carbine is hard because the regular E-5 really is a carbine. You may have to just give the assault class droid an E-5 like the soldier class, or you could make a droideka the support class, SBD the rifleman class, and the B1 the assault class. The engineer should have an E-5 or a pistol. I also think that the sniper should either have paint marks or a regular B1 battle droid skin. I don't like the camo.

Effects: I could tell that you worked very hard on the effects to make them feel movie accurate. I think the flash effect when a unit is hit should be made a lot smaller though. About the size of a watermelon at most. The muzzle flash of the guns should also be a bit smaller. I did not like the grenade effects. The frag grenade had a cool effect but it needs much more smoke, flash, and overall bang. I stood within a meter or two of the frag grenade and did not even flinch. Make it shake the screen a little, have some kick and make it a little bit stronger at close range. The concussion grenade in my opinion should be a big flash, a shock wave that knocks you over, and a poof of smoke. It shouldn't kill you. It should just severely hurt you. All of the other effects were great. The blaster bolt color was perfect. The scorch marks look great!

So I see this as a mod with some amazing things, but it had a few things that I do not like. These are all just things that I think would make this more movie realistic based on my knowledge of star wars and wookiepedia. Wookiepedia will tell you more or less everything you need to know about star wars if you have not looked there yet. It will tell you ammo of weapons and accuracy of weapons and stuff. All these comments that I have made are just because I love the concept of this mod and I want to help you make it as awesome as possible. These are all just opinions though. Feel free to ignore it all. Thanks!

Since I was lucky enough to play the alpha version; what did you change since then? (other than adding Rhen Var)

Thanks for the replies everyone!

I think I may have overemphasized the realism aspect. Realism really wasn't the main objective, the main objective was gameplay and balance, even if that meant sacrificing realism. As much as I loved the RotE series, I found that the 'realism' really impeded the gameplay. It just turned into a laser spamming bowl so I wanted to get away from that. Gam

As for weapon names, I wanted to keep a generic sort of naming scheme to highlight the functional duplicity of the weapons the sides.

@Jodando: I like your ideas and I'll try them out. However, I've experimented a lot with the exact properties of the guns and I'm relatively satisfied with the outcome. The rifle fire rate is actually lower than the carbine and has a higher accuracy (vice versa for the carbine). And the idea behind the support class was to be an anti-infantry class as you suggested. I really like your grenade ideas and I'll try to implement them.

@Nihilo: I think your experience is particularly true for Mos Eisley -- on that map they are perfectly even in combat -- but that won't apply so much for other maps. I would like your further input when I upload some other maps. Also, are you meaning to say that the weapons and units are overpowered? And what handicaps are you referring to? You said the melee was overpowered. The melee was meant as a last resort close quarters weapon. Were trying to jump into a crowd of enemies when you were playing?

@Emperor: I would say its about 20% different. I would download it just to see how the difference affected gameplay.

*******
Some really important things I forgot to say that you all should know.

The semi-automatic modes of the rifle and carbine are more accurate and do more damage than the automatic modes. The semi-auto mode can be more effective for targets for longer ranges. Crouching also makes your shots a good bit more accurate.

Also, I wasn't really intending for players to rush into crowds of enemy units and start trying to go on a shooting rampage like you would with the shipped swbf2 sides. I was trying to foster a more conservative gameplay where you would actually have to buckle down for a while to stay alive and advance more cautiously.

trainmaster611 wrote:@Nihilo: I think your experience is particularly true for Mos Eisley -- on that map they are perfectly even in combat -- but that won't apply so much for other maps. I would like your further input when I upload some other maps. Also, are you meaning to say that the weapons and units are overpowered? And what handicaps are you referring to? You said the melee was overpowered. The melee was meant as a last resort close quarters weapon. Were trying to jump into a crowd of enemies when you were playing?

What I meant was not that the weapons and classes were overpowered, I just felt they were all efficient despite their varying stats.
Handicaps would include the inaccuracy, heat tolerance and the kick, those things weren't really a noticeable problem, hence why I had the feeling that there were no flaws in these weapons/classes.

About the melee attack: sometimes I would turn around a corner and explode (I was playing as a droid) simply because some guy stuck against a wall saw me and melee'd me instantly. Then there were a lot of instances, in close quarters combat situations, where they would simply advance and get an instant-kill, that can be frustrating, since they have perfect reflexes for being bots.
I would suggest reducing the damage of the melee attack to the same ammount that a Lightsaber swipe normally does, a single Lightsaber hit does not kill you instantly, it just throws you to the ground and deals massive damage, if you are lucky and if the guy who struck you down is distracted with something else, you might have a chance to get up and escape (or fight back), that's exactly what I would like to see here.

By the way, what do you have in mind for the vehicles?